Fan Sites

Porchparty.com

This month we feature Porchparty.com, a site devoted to the Recipe. Dana Rozycki spoke about its origins and development…
The site was started in 1999 after a particular great time at the
Recipe Family Cookout in West Virginia, a multi-day festival that
brought together tons of great bands.
At first, it was just a way to share pictures of the band, but over
the years it has become quite a bit more. It provides all the usual
features such as tourdates and setlists, but also provides a way for
Recipe fans to keep in touch and really has become a community.
Many people who have seen the Recipe have sensed that they are more
than just an average band; that there’s something almost mesmerizing
and transcendent about a Recipe show – I mean, its just so much FUN,
and I think that spirit underlies the site.
I think the two most important parts of the site are the pictures and
the message board. There are a lot of great photographers out there
who have put a lot of effort into documenting the fun and energy of
Recipe shows, and we have about 700 or so pictures of the band and
it’s fans.
The site is very comprehensive, featuring photos of the band and
fans, tourdates, setlist, tape traing and MP3 links, a message board,
a band history, a Recipe FAQ, a lyric database, a chat room and
profiles of lots of Recipe fans. We also have a list of new projects
that former members of the band are working on, which I think is kind
of unique among fansites.
It’s also really great to see a community emerge around the message
board, which is the way a lot of people in the Recipe community stay
in touch. A lot of the conversations there are like what you would
hear sitting around a family dinner table: people get married, have
babies, go off to war, closely escape death from terrorist attacks,
get sent to prison under rotten and fanatical laws, deal with grief
and loss, etc. and it all becomes a sort of shared experience.
But the core of porchparty.com is of course The Recipe. Over the
years, they have had more members than Spinal Tap, and have endured
every imaginable trial and test, from having their van broken into
and looted to having their camper burst into flames on the highway.
But they keep on making great music and keep their fans happy.
Porchparty.com, at its best, is a collective reflection of the
happiness that the band has brought us over the years.